Involuntary social distancing has to end now. Trapping everyone inside with the news/Internet, in such a low-trust environment, is breaking people's brains. So many people are falling down rabbit holes they otherwise would not have, with no way of climbing back out.
These are pre-existing psychological tendencies prevalent in many, many people being activated by stress and distrust. It's a mistake to think of it as primarily caused by a defect in character, politics, irrationality, etc. That stuff isn't new--the overall environment is.
It's not something people have much rational control over. The only way to correct it is to get people out of the siege mentality and and focused on other things. They need to interact with other Americans, not the media's polarized caricature of other Americans.
We need to dial everything down right now and stop trying to tell people what they're not allowed to think. Everyone should see by now this is not working. It's backfiring. We all need to focus on more constructive thinking, and that will attract others.
I used to work for a lawyer who had clients that displayed the same behavior I'm seeing everywhere. It alarms me. They were all people who had some rough experiences that destroyed their trust and ability to make sense of things. It generally didn't end well.
I was young, but can say from experience that keeping some sort of dialogue open struck me as much more sensible than shunning them and sending them further into the spiral. Disapproval and isolation was the last thing likely to elicit a better response.
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